Is Mother Nature Causing Stormy Sales? Weather Underground Shows How Weather Impacts Your Bottom Line

Is bad weather good for business? Or is good weather a pain in the bottom line?

Weather Underground has launched what may be the first of its kind — a tool that lets marketers track sales against local weather conditions.

It’s called “Sales Tracker,” and it’s part of a new (and still in beta) Business Center that aims to help marketers and business owners understand — and take advantage of — changes in temperature, precipitation and so forth.

The Sales Tracker tool requires only a location and a date range. With that information, marketers can create a downloadable Excel spreadsheet that already has the weather information installed — just manually add sales data and the spreadsheet generates a summary that shows how sales have corresponded to local weather conditions. It also generates charts showing daily sales compared to temperatures, precipitation and dew point.

A separate Temperature Maps tool shows a half-dozen U.S. weather maps comparing the current five-day forecast with historical temperatures, which may help some businesses identify business opportunities in parts of the country that may be experiencing unusual weather in the immediate future.

It’s no secret that weather can have a huge impact on many businesses — the travel and entertainment industries are obvious ones, but places like tire stores, clothing retailers, sporting goods and outdoor stores and countless others are also sure to be impacted by weather.

Weather Underground’s tools may help businesses like these understand a little better just how much Mother Nature plays a part in their bottom line.